I’ve decided to add a new version of the Talos to the linup based on some feedback I’ve been getting from customers, and to make the Talos a bit of a more rounded offering. The elevated chainstay design is slick and unique, but it does limit dropout selection. There’s just no good way to integrate sliding or rocker drops into the elevated CS design without designing and making our own dropout frame components (which I’m working on, but more on that later).
The problem then becomes how to get such short chainstays with a yoke. I’ve never liked the current offerings of CNC’d yokes, as they don’t actually allow you to run very short chainstays. So I began the process of developing my own that met all of my criteria. After quite a few versions that just weren’t perfect, I arrived at the current design that I’m really excited about.
Without going into a ton of nerdy framebuilder stuff that isn’t that interesting, I’ll just say that this was my solution to a very complex problem. And it came out pretty aesthetic, so I’m very happy with it. This is what we’ll use to offer a rocker dropout version of the Talos.
The rocker drops have about 19mm of travel, and mount the brake within the rear triangle so adding a rack is much easier. The Rocker drop version of the Talos will also come standard with rack mounts. I feel that this makes it an incredibly versatile bikepacking machine.
I finished this prototype and am now bringing it to Norway for 3 weeks of testing. On that note, the shop will be closed from August 1st to the 24th while we’re on summer vacation. We’ll see you at the end of August!
